In the pantheon of popular PlayStation intellectual properties, God of War occupies the throne room alongside other household names like Uncharted and Gran Turismo. But which is the best of Kratos’ bloody escapades to date? Ahead of the release of this year’s reimagining, we’ve returned to Ancient Greece in order to, er, order each of the Ghost of Sparta’s adventures thus far.

Santa Monica Studio was clearly struggling to find new material to explore within Greek mythology, as while Ascension had a lot of new ideas, none of them were that impressive. The headline addition was multiplayer, but this ultimately fell flat, and the single player’s story and boss battles weren’t memorable at all. It had a tough act to follow, releasing in the shadow of God of War III, which definitely didn’t help. It’s still a competent action game, but for our money, Ascension is the weakest entry in the series, and the lacklustre impact at launch reflected that.

The series is known for its graphical fidelity and over the top scale, so when Ready at Dawn were able to tick those two boxes on a PlayStation Portable game, the result was surprisingly strong. This was a full fat God of War adventure that took place before the original, and told the story of Kratos’ search for the missing Sun god, Helios. The developer made strides to humanise Kratos during the game’s famous scene where he reunites with his deceased daughter, but unfortunately the game’s largely forgettable story and short length held it back from true glory.

The game that started it all, Kratos’ debut adventure was a huge success on PS2. It struck a balance between the over the top action of Japanese character action games and the Western taste for spectacle, resulting in a blood-soaked adventure that proved very popular. While its combat, story, and visuals were great at the time, it has of course been outdone in these areas by later entries. However, David Jaffe’s achievements with this first instalment shouldn’t be understated - who can forget the game’s excellent opening battle against the Hydra?

Expanding upon the novelty of Ready at Dawn’s inaugural God of War adaptation, PlayStation Portable stop-gap God of War: Ghost of Sparta bridged the gap between the first entry and its subsequent console-based sequels. Much like Chains of Olympus, the ever-ambitious Ready at Dawn again attempted to humanise the cartoonish nature of Kratos’ character, introducing a family-based sub-plot involving both his mother (who he has to kill, obvs) and his brother (who he ends up fighting alongside). These human moments add depth to the brand as a whole, and despite launching on Sony’s ageing handheld system at the time, the visuals hold up remarkably well.

Picking up immediately after the events of God of War II (more on that in the paragraph below), the gorgeous God of War III took spectacle to unprecedented new levels. Its opening boss fight – a brawl to the death against water-based bigwig Poseidon – is a hall of famer, primarily because the spectacle takes place atop the titan Gaia, who just so happens to be scaling Mount Olympus while you duke it out. The game sticks rigidly to the blueprint adopted by its PS2 forebears, and for that reason it’s not quite as impactful overall. The puzzles are smart, though – Hera’s perspective-based hedge maze is a memorable highlight – and it brings Kratos’ arc to its natural conclusion with a face-smashing QTE that lasts for as long as you want it to.

The previous pinnacle of Sony Santa Monica’s character action franchise, God of War II looked and played so well that many at the time pondered why the 2007 sequel wasn’t releasing on the struggling PlayStation 3 – it certainly looked good enough. This instalment is perhaps best remembered for Zeus’ betrayal in the opening exchanges, which sees irate anti-hero Kratos embark on a blood-fuelled quest for vengeance, only to learn that the bearded deity is actually his daddy. Packed with memorable set-pieces and some cleverly designed puzzles, the second game in the series really embodied everything that the brand was originally about.

A change in direction means that God of War’s anticipated PlayStation 4 debut is the best entry yet. The new camera perspective brings about new gameplay possibilities, as Kratos lobs his axe at unsuspecting enemies – and lays the beat down with his bare fists. But while this version has all of the violent intensity of its predecessors, the protagonist’s relationship with his son Atreus makes him more relatable than ever before – and the pseudo-open world format delivers a sprawling sandbox that’s begging to be explored.

And there you have it. What do you make of our list? Do you agree with the order, or have we angered the Gods? Try not to get too aggressive in the comments below.

GOW 3 for me......the opening hour of Gameplay (Poseidon) was the best introduction to any game I can think of. The sheer sense of scale was astonishing from minute one and the movement and zoom of the the camera position was genius! I remember my jaw hitting the floor on more than one occasion during my first play through. The new one is looking hot though, I've defo got my beady eyes on it!

GoW 3 wins by a mile. The boss fights were incredible... leisurely waddling along to slowly cut off Hermes' legs, blocking the light before ripping off Helios' head and gouging out Poseidon's eyes are up there with GoWs best!! Ascension is still one of my biggest gaming disappointments (along with Resi 6 and Dead Space 3) which were also the worst of their respective series' - ignoring what fans wanted and sacrificing the quality of the campaigns for pointless multiplayer!!

@Wunters
Agree 100 percent, and that is what was included in the demo. Up until then I had no interest in this kind of game but that demo changed everything for me.

After the GoW3 demo I immediately pre ordered GoW3, I revisited the earlier titles in the series, played Bayonetta and any other 3rd person fighting/action game I could think of and it is now amongst my favourite genres.

Turns out the earlier titles held up fantastically and I also loved Acsension personally, I particularly the elephant-like baddies. I always felt that game got a bad rap. It was never going to live up to 3, but that didn't make it a bad game by any stretch.

I am considering another play through of 3 on my PS4 as I have been listening to the soundtrack a lot lately....what an epic game!

God of War II is my favourite. I was amazed by it when I got it and could hardly believe it was running on the PS2. Early 2007 was a great time to still be gaming on the PS2 in Europe (Final Fantasy XII and Ōkami released around the same time!) Amazing pacing with everything that is great about the series. It's wonderful from start to finish.

I'm obviously in the minority but I didn't like GW3 at all. Could be that I played it on the PS4 last year and the mechanics felt dated to me. Trying to jump sideways across the screen by pushing forward up on the stick for example was beyond frustrating.

God of war 3 is the best of the bunch, there's no question about it. The game start with kratos on the body of the titan that scale mount olympus fighting against poisedon, the game end with kratos punch zeus bloody into bloody pulp.

I don't like kratos on gow 3 though, in the first game he was cool anti-hero, in the second game he was kind a-holes, in the third game he become full badguy, there's no redeeming quality. The gameplay is great, the set piece is amazing, but story wise, I'm on the gods side in the third game.

I still think sony is weird for not remastering all of gow games for the ps4 in the second or third year of the launch, they should sell $60 gow collection with gow 1-3 + 2 psp games remastered rather than $40 gow 3 remaster.

Man all this talking about gow make me want to install and play gow 3 remastered again on my ps4

I've only played the three main God of War games, but I would say that the second one is my favourite and the third one was the worst, largely because it was stupid when they tried to turn Kratos into an actual, sympathetic character at the eleventh hour.

@JoeBlogs I don't think that's as bad, and I'm actually looking forward to the new one a lot because it has potential to make Kratos actually interesting. My problem with God of War 3 is that it's normal Kratos, shouting at everyone and murdering indiscriminately, and then he suddenly, randomly starts caring about some girl, and we're supposed to believe it.

I haven't played the game for years by the way, so I can't remember how it goes exactly. I just remember being a bit WHY

@johncalmc That's fair enough. I don't think I really even focused that much on the whys and wherefores when I played it, or cared that much about Kratos as a character. It was all about the brutal action. It will be interesting to see if the new one can make me care about the story and characters.

Hi there. Good question. I don't really know yet, is the answer. I wonder if Kratos may behave in a slightly more empathetic way now as a father. Maybe he will be portrayed slightly differently and not just as the one dimensional rage killing machine. I'm certainly not writing off the new game, I'd like to find out a little bit more.

I'm pretty new to the franchise. I played GoW III on PS4 after seeing the trailer for the new game. I enjoyed it, but that's my only experience with GoW so far. I picked up some of the others but haven't gotten around to trying them yet. I've heard one of the Vita games is to be avoided?

I also just got the email from Gamestop to say my GoW Collector's Edition is on the way. To say that I am excited is an understatement.

Ghost of Sparta is significantly better than II, in my opinion. The new one excluded - I have yet to play it, so I couldn't say - it has by far the best writing and characterisation in the series, and the weapon selection is pretty nice too.

I'll just rank the ones I've played extensively...1. God of War 12. Ghost of Sparta3. GoW 3

Big fan of all three games with the original challenging me the most skill-wise (which is why it gets my top spot) and Ghost of Sparta having easily the best story. Can't wait to play the new one, I have a feeling my list will change.

@JoeBlogs - having no experience of GOW before I was like a rabbit in some headlights. My gaming tastes and behaviour was also much different then, if a game didn't grab me I would sell it immediately and move on. Now I keep all games I buy and give them all a fair chance.

@Flaming_Kaiser - I have been, though the crime was slightly more than a gaming faux pas.

I love God of war 2, it is one of the best games of all time and the best action game so far for me.Instead I don't like God of war 3.I think that both God of war 1 and Ghost of Sparta are better than God of war 3. But the only thing that matters is that I absolutely love GOW 2 and I hope the new one is going to be as good as GOW2. Better is just simply impossible imho.

gow3 is the best from the visuals to the scores, boss battles, set pieces, gameplay and the opening scene is very to topple by any action games up to these days, this list is just a copy paste from any other critics.

I find it interesting that Kratos gets so much crap for being a one note character, yet Chains of Olympus and Ascension, the two games that explore his humanity the most, always seem to be the lowest rated.For the record, my top 3 are 3, CoO and Ascension. 2 is overrated.